The whole reason for the selfsufficientish website was to offer a place where anyone can ask, HOW DO I...? So who knows why it has taken us so long to have a HOW DO I? section, but here it is. So if you want to know how to do anything selfsufficientish then here is the place to ask.

OJ, I've tried salted runner beans, I've tried frozen runner beans, I've tried canned runner beans and they all taste like crap after a month or so.
Many, many years ago I grew far too many runner beans and went and bought a chest freezer (back in the days when freezers were only just becoming available to common folk). We froze a helping just to make sure they froze OK, then took it out a few days later and, lo and behold it tasted pretty much like freshly picked runners. We froze enough to feed the five thousand, and some months later found out the hard way that frozen beans have about a 3 month freezer life.
I made lots of compost that year.

You missed the point about storing French beans, I eat them fresh in two ways and store as dried haricot beans.

MKG wrote:Those old and stringy and tough dried out runner beans can also be shelled, dried completely (I recommend packing them with rice grains) and eaten during the dark months. And very nice they are too.

Mike

Rice grains - that's a good tip. I thought I'd dried mine thoroughly before storing last year, but obviously not, as they went mouldy in the jar. I'll add some rice this year.

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Rachel

Take nobody's word for it, especially not mine! If I offer you an ID of something based on a photo, please treat it as a guess, and a starting point for further investigations.